tube bender

[BWS29128]

He may have trouble with the large dies, but making a tool per the website out of drill rod will be no trouble at all.

I think a 1 1/2 tube will need a 4 1/2 bend radius at least....that's the 9" right there, so, yea, that might be a problem.

I was thinking about trying to make dies out out of 1/4 plate. I was thinking I could plasma cut circles out and sandwich them together. The inner circles would be smaller than the outside, to roughly approximate the inside radius. Then, my plan goes, I could weld them together, chuck them up into the lathe, and finish them out.

Just a thought.

-James

I've had some fantasies along this route, but I keep coming back to the point that I could/can only weld "so" far with my different pieces and then I'm still going to have an awfully lot of "blank steel" with no weld holding it. And also, once I turn it down to the point that it's smooth, I will have ground through most of my weld bead...if not all of it.

[fun4now]

maybe you could plug weld the Pisces together so it would not effect the lathing surfaces. although it may throw it out of balance a bit, but it should be ok long enough to cut it if you clean up the welds. you would have to do that any way to add the next plate. just offset the weld plugs from one plate to the next so you don't have a weld all the way threw it in one place.
if it works send me a set.

[Old Sporty]

Why not build your bender around the Pro Tools dies? Might be more cost effective.

I know, it's nice to use a tool if you have it, but sometimes it makes more sense to build the bender and buy the dies.

Just a thought.

BTW, I have 12" lathe and wouldn't think twice about buying the dies. To turn a full set is a tremendous amount of work especially on a manual lathe.

Lots of luck whichever way you go.

[jamscal]

Good idea on the plug welds fun4now.

I think proper plug welds will be fine. The worst case scenerio is splitting a die.

Or, if the die has enough 'meat' you could possible bolt through in several spots.

I plan on buying a bender ( cheap for what you get) and making some of the smaller/specialty dies, some of which cost almost as much as a bender.

I plan on buying a 1 1/2 die set, which is a couple hundred dollars, adding more as necessary, and attempting to make some of the smaller dies myself.

-James

[monte55]

I haven't looked at them closely but what about the gate roller wheels that roll on round stock. Might be worth a look.